The Supreme Court has upheld the differential treatment of residents of Puerto Rico, ruling that Congress was within its power to exclude them from a benefits program that’s available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The Supreme Court on Thursday kept alive a California man’s hope of reclaiming a valuable impressionist masterpiece taken from his family by the Nazis and now on display in a Spanish museum.
Court of Appeals of Indiana
Jesse L. Mathews v. State of Indiana
20A-CR-2229
Criminal. Affirms the Clay Circuit Court’s decision to use the state’s jury instruction on the issue of motive in a partial decapitation case in which Jesse Mathews was convicted of felony murder and Level 6 felony abuse of a corpse. Finds that either the trial court or the state’s instruction would have produced the same verdict. Also finds the trial court did not abuse its discretion is excluding evidence of a witness’s purported call to a police officer. Finally, finds a mistrial was not warranted in response to an individuals’ spontaneous testimony regarding a possible polygraph test, and the cumulative effect of the trial court’s decisions does not require reversal of Mathews’ conviction.
A pattern jury instruction on motive used in a murder case adequately equipped the jury to perform its role in convicting a man who tried to decapitate a woman he killed, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has ruled.
A defendant challenging his habitual offender status based on a change to state statute did not persuade the Court of Appeals of Indiana, which found the Legislature’s move to limit the jury’s role did not infringe on any constitutional rights.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana has partially reversed for a Greencastle man after it concluded testimony from a sheriff’s deputy wasn’t enough evidence for a resisting law enforcement conviction.
A terminally ill firefighter’s marriage days before his death to a woman who was 36 years his junior and the beneficiary of his pension was upheld by the Court of Appeals of Indiana, which found no evidence to support his children’s contention that the nuptials should be annulled because their father’s mental capacity was impaired by pain medication.
The Indiana Supreme Court has ultimately found a hospital is not liable after one of its ex-employees compromised confidential health records of several former patients and another former employee in a family feud.
Read Indiana appellate court decisions from the latest reporting period.
A breach-of-confidentiality dispute between concrete-industry employees and their former employer returned to the Court of Appeals of Indiana for a second time but largely yielded the same result on Tuesday. However, one of the companies did score a partial win as the COA overturned an award of attorney fees.
President Joe Biden’s requirement that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 was upheld Thursday by a federal appeals court.
The Tippecanoe School Corporation has secured summary judgment against a student’s negligence claim after the Court of Appeals ruled in its favor following a cheerleader’s injury.
A trial court’s erroneous decision to reject a defendant’s proposed preliminary instructions has led to the reversal of the defendant’s drug dealing conviction. But the Court of Appeals of Indiana left open the possibility of a retrial due to other significant evidence, including evidence of text messages sent and received by a man who died of a drug overdose.
Three of the four women who accused former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill of groping them cannot sue the state under Title VII, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, finding the legislative staffers were employed by the Indiana House and Senate, not the state itself.
Court of Appeals of Indiana
State of Indiana v. Lamar Fox
21A-CR-2445
Criminal. Reverses the grant of Lamar Fox’s motion to suppress. Finds the home detention contract Fox signed explicitly stated he waived his Fourth Amendment and state constitutional rights. Also finds State v. Ellis, 167 N.E.3d 285 (Ind. 2021), applies.
In a lesson to the lower courts about judicial economy, the Indiana Supreme Court has overturned a ruling that had prevented a health care provider from obtaining a declaratory judgment as to whether it could charge patients for the cost of nonformulary over-the-counter medications.
A green space in an Indianapolis residential subdivision should have received a common area property tax exemption for the 2016 and 2017 tax years, the Indiana Tax Court has affirmed.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana has reversed the suppression of evidence found during the search of a man’s hotel room after determining the defendant had waived his constitutional search-and-seizure protections in a home detention agreement.
In a victory for people falsely accused by police of crimes, the U.S. Supreme Court removed a barrier Monday to lawsuits against law enforcement for malicious prosecution.
A Goshen wife who discovered during divorce proceedings that her husband had actually been married to another woman during their marriage had her decree of annulment overturned after the Court of Appeals of Indiana found the man was not properly notified through a service by summons.